SPLASH!
When I first logged back into the home instance, I found myself in water up to my ti—uh, in water just to the level of my mermaid/faerie-hybrid hivatar’s bandeau. It wasn’t cold water, like the beaches back home, but it was definitely a surprise. When I had last been in the home instance, it had been a semblance of a dirt-floored wooden hut, about ten feet wide, long, and maybe that high. It had been sparsely furnished, just a ramshackle wooden cot in one corner and a massive display screen comprising the fourth wall.
Now….
Now it looked nothing like it had looked.
The water, of course, was a very big difference. Instead of standing on packed dirt, or well, given that I was part faerie in this body, hovering over packed dirt, I was floating in warm water up to my chest, though the crystal clear water revealed a sloping, white sand bottom several feet below the fluke of my mermaid tail. I was bobbing in place as gentle waves rolled under me, the water not even crashing into foam as it flowed up to the beach and caressed the sands like a lover.
Every which way I looked, there were no walls bounding the home instance. The white sand of the beach stretched out in a wide crescent to my left and right and continued on to rolling dunes and beach grass several dozen yards beyond the high-tide line. Behind me, stretching out to the horizon, was water.
It was dark, so the horizon was much closer than it otherwise would have been, but the beach and sheltered bay? lagoon? was well illuminated by the light of three moons: one full, one near-to-full, and a third—just over the horizon—a waning crescent. So, the light of two moons, really.
And the light of a small bonfire burning merrily on the beach. Near enough to the bonfire to be illuminated, but not so near as to be overhot, were a trio of beach towels spread out on the sand: one in pink, one in pale seafoam green, and one in coral—matching Jasmine’s and my colours.
The scene was further decorated with starfish, sand dollars, and assorted shells on the sands and with many small, silvery, golden, or rainbow-hued fish in the water. Well, small to a normal-sized human, anyway. But given that I was a bit under six inches from head to fluke, they didn’t seem all that tiny to me.
As I was looking around in slack-jawed surprise, I was tackled from behind by Jasmine.
She giggled,
We talked a bit, she wanted to know my reactions and thoughts about things she had observed while operating behind the scenes, but mostly we played. Well, frolicked.
We darted deep to pick up shiny pebbles and shells from the sloping seafloor, then let them drop just to watch the way they tumbled erratically though the water. We skimmed along the surface of the water, splashing through the gentle wavelets. We built tiny sandcastles and giggled as the waves erased them. I felt a bit like a young child again, though obviously my sister and I had never flown as we played at the beach.
I had backed into one of those walls. Not hard enough to actually hurt, but enough to surprise me.
She nodded.
Once more she nodded. Then she flew close enough to hug me.
The name was a bit hard to say in the language I was currently speaking, but it looked even weirder on the pink-bordered, pale seafoam green status screen that loaded up. Again, the screen was displaying text in English, but I had to focus to read it. I guess I was bilingual—now. But in this hivatar, English was definitely not my native language.
Unfortunately, none of the other titles I had earned so far were particularly appealing to be known as, so for now Madelyn Alexis’s active title would have to remain unset.
That done, the next—and perhaps more important—thing to do was to send in some feedback. Now that I wasn’t tired from a very extended play session and exhausted mentally, emotionally, and physically from all that had happened, it was very obvious that the Hidden Nature racial ability needed some adjustments. Even if it only gave me Defense, which was mostly useless if I got to play the way I intended, what was the point of it having a duration if it could be activated again with so little effort? For a lot of what I had done, I hadn’t had the luxury of waiting for one point of mana to regenerate, but that had been an atypical experience (I hope!). Moreover, I was still a low-level character with limited supplies. Higher level characters would have faster mana regeneration and would likely have more resources for restoring mana.
I was midway through putting my thoughts into coherent form—hampered somewhat by the need to translate my thoughts back into English—when Jasmine spoke up.
She giggled,
I spent a short moment making sure my bandeau was straight and a longer moment smoothing back loose strands of hair and readjusting my ponytail. Then I flew over to the beach with Jasmine and awaited the GMs to arrive.
One moment we were alone and the next there were four others towering over us. I recognized the feline, I guess Nekoun, maid as GM Nazhai from before, but with her were three others I hadn’t met. Well, who gets much of an opportunity to meet GMs, after all?
The other woman was a wispy blonde elf of some sort, the overlong ears betraying her race. She was dressed a bit like a maid, but with far more frills and ruffles and accessories than would be practical for anyone doing any maid-like work. It was more of an eye-candy style that way, but the long, voluminous skirts and modest neckline suggested that it wasn’t in the same milieu as the stereotypical French maid. I didn’t know what to make of the eye-patch, though.
The men, I suppose, in their black slacks, white shirts, black ties and coats were supposed to be butlers. The grey-furred Ratkin—I guess like hivatars, GMs aren’t required to be player races—maybe looked a bit like a butler, distinguished but slightly disheveled, but the other man … I immediately thought of the Secret Service, and not the semi-professional ones of reality, but the genuinely scary “men in black” of movies. This blond-haired giant of a man looked like a reformed thug and his severe expression would likely be enough to give hardened criminals nightmares. There was nothing in his manner or posture that conveyed deference; rather, this was a man to whom deference was due.
I sketched a mid-air bow—mermaids not really being equipped to curtsey—and flew a bit higher. Focusing on speaking in English rather than this hivatar’s native language, I addressed them. “Welcome, GM Nazhai and … friends? I’m guessing this isn’t a social call, so how can I help you?”
Before Nazhai or the men could answer, however, the elf exclaimed, “Oh, I like what you’ve done with your home instance. You’re not the first to decorate, but I don’t think anyone else has done quite as much.”
“Ah, that wasn’t me. That was
“You let your AI assistant decorate your home instance?” the Ratkin inquired. His voice was quavery with age, but his eyes were clear and sharp. While he looked like a Ratkin, albeit a well-dressed one, he lacked the phrasing and intonation qualities of the one other Ratkin I had previously met.
“Why not? It’s more her home than mine, since she needs to stay here while I’m in the game world or offline. I just pass through.”
The Ratkin started to say something. It sounded a bit like “…explains that…” but the scary blond man spoke over him. “That’s all well and nice, but we’re not here for that. Nazhai, if you would?”
Nazhai stepped forward, “Miss … Starlight,” she said, giving me a short form of the name that Jasmine had given me. “These are my colleagues, Victoria Delacroix, Talos, and Gawain.” She indicated the elf, the Ratkin, and the blond man in order. “We have some questions for you.” She gestured at me and turned to her fellow GMs. “This is the player of Madelyn Alexis. She’s the one who encountered the glitch in character creation due to her hivatar not being a playable race, which is how I met her.”
Gawain stepped forward. “As Nazhai said, we have some questions for you. However nice your home instance redecoration may be, this is not a good setting for an interview. Will you come with us?”
I shrugged and nodded, glancing back at Jasmine who seemed to be as clueless as I. “I guess.” Then I looked at the half-composed message I had been working on, “Uh, I was working on some feedback. Will it save, or should I just tell you directly?” I shot a questioning look toward Nazhai.
“Send it to me, now.” She gently replied. “It may be relevant to the questions we have. Ah, don’t use the regular feedback form though. Use, instead….” She paused for a moment, and glanced upward and to the side, perhaps accessing her own interface. “Ah, tmp5511397. That will go to all four of us. It will only accept the one message, though.”
I repeated back the address for confirmation, and sent the half-written feedback about Hidden Nature. No sooner than my message screen had disappeared, I found myself … elsewhere.
It looked like a meeting room at a really relaxed business or maybe a very large living room in a work-focused home. It reminded me a bit of some of the lounge rooms back at the college dorms. One wall was entirely hidden by bookshelves, floor to ceiling. Most books had the thickness one would expect with reference material or college texts, but one whole section—and not a small section, either—was filled with what could only be pulpy paperbacks. They looked like the westerns or second-rate science fiction books that our local library had. The opposite wall was divided half and half with the left half featuring a giant corkboard with a variety of pinned notes upon it and the right half having a genuine blackboard with its tray filled with erasers and assorted colors of chalk.
Behind me, though I didn’t immediately see them, there were a pool table and foosball table near the wall, and a large flat-screen television or computer monitor built into the wall. The wall I was facing had a closed doorway with end tables adjacent and several paintings of landscapes displayed, almost like an art gallery. Throughout the room were several recliners, loveseats, and even long couches that could sit four or five comfortably. Coffee tables with fancy books or vases dotted the room.
What I noticed most, though, was that the four GMs were no longer towering over me. Instead of flying, I was standing on a plushly carpeted floor. And….
Once again, my body was different!
With four GMs waiting to talk to me, I didn’t have the time to examine myself closely, but a glance downward was disconcerting: short-sleeved white blouse tucked into a box-pleated, khaki skirt that was way too short for my comfort. The schoolgirl look was enhanced by over-the-knee white socks, shiny black loafers with a bow accent, and a thin red ribbon tied into a bow in place of a tie.
From the strands of hair that drifted in front of my eyes as I looked downward, I was still blonde. From the way my hair moved and brushed my shoulders, it was still in a ponytail. At a guess, they just human-sized and human-shaped my hivatar. But still … that made the third girl I’ve been in VR without even making it into the full game world yet. Fourth, if you count the “more primal form” of Hidden Nature to be different enough from my character’s normal look.
Argh! My manly pride….
Oh, one of the GMs was already speaking. It was time to pay attention to things other than my figure.
“—creates a non-game avatar extrapolated from the hivatar. This helps reinforce that the meetings are outside the game even if not outside virtual reality. It also is convenient when hivatars are as heavily customized as yours was, Miss. Meaning no disrespect, but it would have been hard to hold a serious conversation with a pint-sized, underdressed mermaid. Additionally, it seems apparent that you had even gone so far as to adjust your primary language. This will be easier on all of us if you don’t have to mentally translate.”
It was the Ratkin, Talos, who was speaking. Beyond my immediate situation, I was also distracted by waiting for and never hearing the expected “Skree” that had marked the speech of the Ratkin I had encountered in the tutorial.
“And the school uniform?” I inquired, perhaps a bit archly. At least the girls I had been before were the results of my own choices and actions, even if I wasn’t fully aware of what I had been choosing or, in the case of Madelyn Alexis, even that I had been choosing. This was … a whole different kettle of fish.
“It gives a more formal feel without being stifling.” This was the elf, Victoria, speaking. “Your hivatar’s swimwear would have been too distracting for these men, and the outfits that people wear in game need to change for the same reason the avatars do. Armor or robes wouldn’t allow the separation from the game that is needed. But if you want something other than the outfit you have now, maybe I can come up with someth—”
“You two can play ‘dress up’ later, Victoria.” Gawain cut her off with a dismissive gesture and a look I couldn’t read. It wasn’t quite condescension nor was it quite bemusement, but maybe somewhat in between with a hint of amusement and suggestion of approval. Besides scary, he was a confusing guy.
She muttered something about “all work and no play,” even as Gawain gestured for me to sit.
“Please, Miss Starlight. Take a seat and get comfortable. We do have some questions from you and would appreciate your cooperation.”
A bit apprehensive, I sat on one of the few one-person seats, choosing a dark brown recliner near where I had been standing. Almost reflexively, I smoothed my skirts behind me as I sat, keeping to the edge of the seat so my half-exposed thighs wouldn’t be against the probably scratchy fabric of the cushions. Knees together and ankles crossed, I folded my hands in my lap. It appeared that the behind-the-scenes systems were in play here, too, since I moved as naturally as if I had been wearing skirts all my life, which I most certainly hadn’t been!
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Nazhai and the the men took seats near each other, Nazhai on a loveseat and the men on either end of a long couch. Victoria sat delicately on a couch further back, but with the skirts of her dress made voluminous by layers of petticoats, her outfit required a bit more care in sitting than any of theirs or even mine did.
“First question, Miss Starlight: why did you choose to make your character a Tauros?” Gawain was obviously the one in charge of this, whatever this was. It wasn’t an interrogation, I didn’t think. There was a probably a much less comfortable room designed for that.
“Huh?” That wasn’t the direction I had assumed the questions would be going. After having heard my twin say that people on the forums were angry with my achievements and that the GMs were looking into accusations of cheating, I had thought that maybe the GMs were going to ask about that encounter…. “I didn’t exactly choose a Tauros,” I explained. “It just sort of happened.”
“How so?” Gawain leaned forward somewhat. If he had taken a closer seat, I might have called it looming.
“Well, I was playing with character creation options, just seeing what was available. Maybe I spent too long with that because by the time she was made, I had forgotten that touching the displayed character meant selection. I patted her on the head, and the next thing I knew, I was in the tutorial as her.”
“You didn’t get a confirmation window first?” Nazhai asked.
“Uh? No, not that I saw.” I had got a confirmation pop-up for the hivatar change purchase and for giving Jasmine permission to remodel the home instance as she had seen fit, so why hadn’t I got one for character creation?
“Hmm. Make a note of that, Nazhai. No, actually….” Gawain looked to the side, and the chalkboard, which had previously been clean of even the faintest speck of chalk dust now had text upon it: Madelyn Alexis. Character Creation. No Confirmation. Turning back to me, “If you weren’t planning on playing a Tauros, then why did you keep her?”
“I had to figure out how to log out first, and in the figuring out, I saw several things that I assumed I wouldn’t get again on a new character. A unique achievement for spending so long in character creation, getting Heroine for being the 50,000th created character, and even the ring which was compensation for the earlier bug. Since the ring went to my inventory, I didn’t know if I would get a second one on a second character.”
“Reasonable concerns.” Gawain leaned back, “In your shoes, I might have done the same. Next question, then, Miss. Can you explain why you chose the unique spell Heroine perk and why you chose water as the element of the spell?”
I thought back to that moment. Though it had been only about twenty-four hours ago, give or take, so much had happened since then that it felt longer.
“Well, there were several possibilities that had caught my eye, but in the end, I didn’t want to spend too much more time preparing to play instead of playing. It was effectively ‘eenie meenie miney moe’ between the spell and the aura. The spell won. And I chose water because, well, it seemed right since my hivatar was effectively a mermaid. It was a toss-up between water and air, mermaid and faerie. I didn’t think about it too much.”
“The same reason for the bow’s attunement, then?” So far, though Nazhai had said (or implied, at least) that all four of the GMs had questions, it was really Gawain running the show: all the questions, so far, had been from him.
“Hmm, basically.” I had to keep fighting back the urge to gesture as I spoke, but keeping my hands demurely in my lap seemed better. If nothing else, they were an additional defense keeping the hem of my skirt in place! “But more planning for the future. Specialization. I could have taken a different element to minimize my chances of running into something that I was totally unsuited to fight—I bet an ice monster might not be too deterred by Mistshard—but if I ended up getting an ability or equipment that let me boost water damage for my spell, then the bow wouldn’t have benefited. ECHO seems to be geared more toward specialists than generalists, so that’s what I chose. Even if I’m not really there yet….”
After all, a level 2 player can hardly be that specialized yet, right?
As if by unspoken cue, Talos picked up the thread of the questioning. “Miss Starlight, when you went in to the last two encounters, and indeed when you left the tutorial, you did so with one of your skill slots empty. Please explain what prompted you do leave a primary skill unchosen.”
“Time, mostly,” I began. Were these questions related to a cheating investigation or what? I couldn’t see how they connected.
“Elucidate, please.”
“Well, when I had chosen my first skills, it had already been a long time since I had gotten into the pod, and I then had spent even more time with all the Heroine stuff. I was tired, a bit out of sorts from the circumstances, and I just wanted to play. You all didn’t publish enough information to plan out a build ahead of time, so I just took a few basic skills to enable how I had thought I was going to play. After I had started using the spell, I realized I needed a bit more support for it if I was going to use magic a lot, and I picked Gathering on a bit of a whim. That left me with only one skill to choose, and I didn’t want to spend the time thinking about what I needed or wanted. It was late and I was more than tired by the time I got to the skeletons.”
I shrugged and paused, though not long enough for another question to be asked. “At that point, I just wanted to get the tutorial over so I could log out and go to sleep. Now, it’s a matter of figuring out what I want. Do I focus on archery and take a skill to support that or grow Agility? Do I focus on my magic and take a skill that gives me more spells or grows Brilliance or Willpower? Do I take Cooking now or wait for later? Do I focus more on raising my offense, or do I take a skill to boost survivability increasing Defense or Endurance? Or do I take something utility, like Cartography, to help whatever party I end up playing with? Since skill slots are really limited, I need to put some thought into it, and with my playstyle changing from what I had thought it would be, I just haven’t had the opportunity to really think about it. I bet I’m not the only one who didn’t have all my skills selected.”
They were all nodding along as I spoke, even Victoria who seemed a bit disinterested in this portion of the question-and-answer period. I wondered what she was along for.
“Fair enough,” Talos responded. “So it wasn’t an attempt to increase the challenge by having fewer options?”
I shook my head emphatically, ponytail swinging back and forth. “Nuh-uh! Not when ‘challenge’ means it takes longer and hurts more! That skeleton fight was too intense. Especially since I wasn’t prepared for it and none of my skills really helped that much. It was a bad encounter for my build.”
Talos glanced toward Gawain who nodded slightly. I wouldn’t have seen it, but when the Ratkin looked away, I focused on where he was looking. When he spoke again, his tone was almost sheepish, perhaps apologetic.
“Miss Starlight, it appears that you—and many others, you are correct—innocently stumbled into a bug that enabled a not-fully-implemented ‘challenge mode’ for that encounter, and so it was, indeed, harder than it should have been. You were compensated for the increase in difficulty, though. The bow you received was better than should have been available in the tutorial, and it seems to have served you well in your next encounter.”
Turning to his peers, he continued. “I checked the loot table for that chest. Madelyn Alexis had a one-in-five chance of getting that bow or something else that matched closely with her displayed fighting style. Getting the bow was a matter of luck, and while she might have achieved similar results with a slingshot or crossbow, if she had looted a greatsword, battleaxe, tower shield, or blacksmithing hammer, they would not have been as useful, I presume.”
He turned his attention back to me. “After the fight with the skeleton mage, you activated the green crystal. Why did you chose that particular one?”
I thought back to that moment. “Honestly, I didn’t know it was going to do what it did. When I saw it, I thought it might have been additional loot from the fight. As for that pedestal? That’s the one I ran into during the fight, so I started with it. I was going to investigate the other ones, too, but never got a chance.”
“Very well,” Gawain resumed. “Miss Starlight, there is one last thing before Victoria has questions for you. My assessment is that your defeat of the final encounter was due to a confluence of effects. First, there was an element of luck and serendipity in that you became a Heroine and that your subsequent choices aligned to put you in a position where skill and determination could triumph. Luck alone couldn’t account for your victory, but without luck—and that includes the serendipity of benefiting from a bug—neither skill nor determination would have been sufficient. For instance, if you had activated the fire gem instead of the earth gem, your chosen element of water would not have helped you.”
Seeing my confusion—after all, water is traditionally strong against fire—Nazhai added a comment. “Fire evaporates water. Water erodes earth. Earth impedes air. Air controls fire. Light shines upon the four; the four dominate darkness in their own ways, and darkness conceals light.”
Apparently, ECHO had a very non-traditional take on elemental advantages.
“Yes, and you would have found it much harder to clamber upon the fire boss, I’m sure.” Gawain’s tone was dry. “But luck and serendipity only go so far. There were other elements at play. Talos?”
“My staff has been re-enacting that encounter using a template based on Madelyn Alexis’s skills, attributes, and equipment. Out of 108 total attempts so far, there has been one near-success and three other runs that passed the second enrage threshold at what would be 50% damage on a traditional life bar model. No one has succeeded yet, which means I’ll have to try.” He didn’t sound very enthused about the prospect.
“Based on my team’s feedback, it is my opinion that a skilled and appropriately geared player might be able to reliably succeed with her strategy at level ten or fifteen, but that also depends on Hidden Nature remaining as it was for her. Which it won’t. Thank you for your feedback, Miss Starlight, but the balance team is already working on it. Right now, the racial ability has been temporarily modified to have a five-minute cooldown, the same as its base duration, but it’s under active discussion even as we speak. Who knows where it may end up.”
Gawain then stood and bowed. “It’s been a pleasure, Miss Starlight, but what we needed to address has been addressed. I have other work, and I’m sure you want to get back to playing.” He turned and walked toward the door, fading out as he did so, leaving a ghostly afterimage behind for several seconds.
Talos likewise bowed himself out, though he disappeared much more quickly, with none of the special effects.
Victoria then bounded from her seat with much more energy and vivaciousness than one would expect from GM staff. She almost seemed to be as young as I looked. “My turn, then!”
Nazhai smiled as the fancily-dressed elf approached me. The catgirl maid’s expression had a hint of mischief to it, suggesting that maybe this part of the interview wouldn’t be quite as expected. Then again, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from the first part, either, but I don’t think I got it.
“Now that you’ve satisfied the Chief of Security and the Head of Instanced Encounter Design—well, they were pretty much already satisfied with what their investigations showed, I think, so this was mostly a formality—now you get to talk with Marketing!”
Victoria sat on a nearby loveseat, and I got the feeling that if I had been on a multi-person seat instead of the recliner I had chosen, she would have sat next to me and maybe even draped her arm around my shoulders. Sitting on the edge of the seat to preserve her skirts and petticoats, she leaned forward. “I’m going to show you a video. Forget for a moment that you’re watching yourself play and instead think about it as if you were someone else.”
She snapped her fingers and pointed to a projected screen that appeared to our side. What it displayed was a greatly condensed—and professionally edited—version of my fight with Sar’Glagalth. Despite the editing, it was still over five minutes long, but at no time, other than maybe the first transformation sequence into Hidden Nature’s more primal form, did the action let up. And even that transformation was condensed, focusing more on the growth in stature than on the growth in figure. Nevertheless, seeing myself looking like that caused me to blush.
“So, I showed you that for two reasons. First, Nazhai and her player relations people need something to help calm down the discussion threads about your amazing victory and achievements. Something more than the dry, clinical write-up that Gawain will create. If the players can see that you worked for that victory, they’ll—. Well, maybe there will still be some grumbling, but a lot will become grudging respect or out-and-out admiration instead of jealousy and envy. Second, think of the advertising value of that video! Doesn’t watching that get your blood pumping and make you want to try it?”
“To be honest,” I inquired, “wouldn’t that be a bit misleading as an advertisement? I mean, there’s more to the game than just big epic fights, right?”
If anything, Victoria’s smile became wider and Nazhai slowly shook her head in the way audiences do when they see a character walking into a trap.
“What? What did I say?”
“Of course there’s more to the game than just fighting, and I bet you’re going to see and do a tremendous amount of it, Miss Starlight! After all, how many others have befriended not just one, but two faeries?”
“Ah, about that….” I brought up my concerns that the tutorial assistants might be suffering from their protocols and the way players might be seeing and treating them. I talked about Sunrise Sparkle and her issues specifically, and both GMs promised to have it looked into.
From there, it turned into a bit of a freewheeling conversation, bouncing off past game experiences and touching on what I may plan to do in ECHO. I didn’t learn too much about Victoria or Nazhai other than that both played as much as their duties allowed.
I did learn, however, that primary skills were both more common and more scarce than I had assumed. They were more common in that the first additional primary skill would come at character level five with the second at level ten. They were more scarce in that by the time a player was level one hundred, he or she’d finally reach the maximum amount of active skills: nine, four to start and five additional over the levels. Secondary skill slots, on the other hand, were solely tied to the Brilliance stat.
“That’s mostly because Brilliance is important to spellcasting, and spellcasters tend to want or need a larger variety of support skills, such as additional types of magic or skill versions of modifiers, such as increased range,” Nazhai explained. “A typical sword-and-board style or stealthy dagger style of player only needs a few core skills. Even a pure crafter, dedicated to one favored tradeskill, doesn’t need that much.”
As it turned out, it was likely that I’d gain my next secondary skill slot before reaching level five and getting a new primary skill. At a total Brilliance of 25, not counting bonuses from equipment, players would get their first new secondary skill. Since I had two primary skills that provided Brilliance as they leveled, I could look forward to having more additional secondary skills than many others—especially if I added points to Brilliance when I leveled—but given that I was effectively a caster hybrid and likely would be a crafter as well, I’d probably end up needing those secondary skill slots, too.
Even though I was getting this information straight from two high-ranking GMs, they took care to note that I wasn’t getting an unfair advantage. The information on skill progression was already on the website and posted in several forum threads. If I hadn’t slept the rest of the day away, I might have already learned it on my own.
Finally, however, the conversation rolled back to advertising and marketing. “You want me to what?” I asked, semi-stunned in disbelief at Victoria’s suggestion.
“To be a mascot,” she repeated.
Before I could speak, however, Nazhai smiled a bit mischievously and said, “Do note, she said ‘a mascot’ and not ‘the mascot’. There is a difference.”
“But…. Why me?”
Victoria shook her head, “Not you, you specifically, but your character, Madelyn Alexis. Think about it. First, your character is cute. She’s not got the stereotypical generic fantasy figure, so she provides diversity. Even powered up with Hidden Nature, she’s still not a wasp-waisted comic book character. Additionally, you’ve already accomplished much with her, so you have notoriety and even some name recognition, which I’m sure won’t be just a passing fad. Moreover, you’re playing a very underrepresented race. Madelyn Alexis was the first Tauros player character, and as of just a few hours ago, you’re still only one of less than a dozen. Having Madelyn Alexis as a mascot,” she stressed the indefinite article as Nazhai had done, “may inspire others to try and copy her. That can only be good for diversity. Finally, you’re one of the game’s Chrysanthemum Heroines or Heroes, so things may be happening around you, anyway.”
Victoria then stood gracefully and walked over to me, “Of course,” she said, “you you, and not just Madelyn Alexis you, are cute enough that we could use your hivatar or this avatar based on it for other marketing projects, too.” She placed a hand on my shoulder as she spoke, and I could feel my cheeks burning in further embarrassment.
“T-this is, well, this is very flattering,” I stammered, still blushing, “but I’m not really looking for a job….”
“Oh, it’s not a job per se,” Victoria responded. “A couple afternoons a month, maybe an event or two here or there—we’d need one of those afternoons soon for an idea my team floated—but for the most part, just play as you have been, and my team will do the rest. Of course, if you do want a job, I can kit you out in a dress like mine or Nazhai’s in no time.” She looked … almost eager at that possibility. “We do have a couple professional streamers that we sponsor.”
The negotiations went back and forth, and while I was sure Victoria was probably getting the better end of the deal, I didn’t really have too many things I wanted, just a couple hard limits, actually.
First, I made it clear that I absolutely did not want anything related to real life, the non-virtual world, to be used. That meant, for instance, that a lot of the talk I had with Sunrise Sparkle couldn’t be used, since I had talked a lot about myself and my twin. It also meant that I wasn’t going to be personally attending trade shows or conventions on the company’s behalf. While they might want to use Madelyn Alexis as a mascot, my real world self was very much not suited to be a ‘booth babe’ or anything. I didn’t spell out specifically why, but neither Victoria nor Nazhai were slouches, they could probably figure it out … especially if they ended up reviewing the long discussion I had had with Sunrise Sparkle. After all, someone probably needed to do so as part of the investigation into that concern I had raised.
Second, I wasn’t planning on being a solo player, though I might do stuff on my own if the rest of the group wasn’t around or had different plans. While I didn’t have a group yet—I hadn’t made it to where I could even meet other players yet!—Victoria or her people would have to make deals with whomever those players would be if was needed. If marketing wanted to turn a dungeon run into a promotional video, they’d need the consent of the other people helping me do the run, after all.
And, finally, I didn’t want any compensation that would change my game experience: no game currency, no trinkets or gear, not even hints and suggestions like “we would like you to run this dungeon or event you haven’t done yet because it would make a good video and you’d get good rewards.”
Speaking of compensation, that matter was a bit tricky itself. I mean, it wasn’t going to be a job so I wasn’t going to get a salary, not that I’d be able to explain that to Lex anyway, but apparently they thought that my, well Madelyn Alexis’s, marketing value as a mascot was significant. In the end, we decided on two things.
One: a percentage of any sales of physical or digital merchandise based on Madelyn Alexis, such as dolls, posters, licensed tee shirts, or phone apps. This money would go into an account that would donate to charities of my choice. After all, I didn’t need the money, and just like a salary it would be hard to explain. This was my idea.
The GMs felt it wasn’t enough, so they offered another option in addition. Heraldic Echo would provide two FIVR pods and game subscriptions that I could give away. To say that I was stunned was a bit of an understatement. Honestly, it’s not everyday that someone casually gives away nearly six figures in raising a payment. Was Madelyn Alexis’s image and supposed future accomplishments really that valuable to them? Was Victoria getting the better end of the deal, now?
After some hesitation, I agreed. I didn’t have to think too hard about whom to have them send the pods to. One would go to Michelle, my former high school girlfriend. We parted amicably after graduation, when we went to separate colleges, but were still very close friends. We emailed, texted, or talked several times a week, often daily. She knew that I was going to be playing—I had told her when I had ordered the pods—and she had expressed regret that she couldn’t afford it herself. Michelle wasn’t especially into video games, theater was more her passion, but many a lazy high school afternoon had been spent, snuggled together on the couch and playing Smash Brothers before or after watching a TV show she liked or a film or musical she had rented. Of all the people I knew online or off, including my sister, Michelle was probably the one who I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable with knowing I was Madelyn Alexis. We had been friends from fifth grade, sharing everything, ever since she her first day in middle school, in a class that had none of the kids she had known from the peninsula’s second elementary school up north. Our romantic relationship in high school was more of a deepening of our friendship than it was taking it in a new direction.
The other pod would go to my sister’s best friend, Heather. She and my twin shared much the same interests as friends usually do, but Heather was even more gung-ho on exploration than Lex was. There wasn’t all that much to explore on the peninsula north of the lighthouses, but she had surely seen it all. She’d gone as far afield as she could afford for mountain climbing and spelunking. Not that she needed to go too far, with all that the Cascades offered, but Heather did go out to the Ozarks after graduation. Since Lex and I wouldn’t be playing together, I thought it would be good for her to have a friend to explore with—even if she had already hooked up with that beta player.
Of course, I asked Victoria to make sure the pods were delivered anonymously, to make it look like the girls were winners in the giveaway. After all, even rich people don’t give ex-girlfriends presents comparable in cost to a new car, and Heather and I only knew each other through my twin. And who spends that kind of money on that tenuous a relationship? Since I wasn’t actually spending anything, other than I guess some afternoons in the future, I didn’t see it as that big of a deal, but it would probably have looked like one from the outside. I would never have bought her a pod, not even if were were billionaires instead of millionaires, but this would be okay. Just as long as she and my sister didn’t know I was the source. Explanations would be complicated, otherwise.